A/N: Yeah, I know. I haven't been around much. Long Covid still hurting me, and for that I'm sorry. Hopefully I can still do this and bring a smile to your face.

Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Sarah asked, the two standing in front of her best friends door. It was New Year's Eve and Zondra and Carina had been insistent that they meet the new man in Sarah's life.

The door opened and Chuck turned to Sarah. "Of course, I'm sure," he said to her. Zondra and Carina shared a look at the exchange they overheard. "Who wouldn't want to bring in the New Year with you?"

Sarah smiled at him, and the two entered the apartment. It was just the four of them, a little intimate gathering of friends…or as Sarah said, an interrogation.

"So, Chuck," Zondra said after all the pleasantries had been taken care of and everyone was seated with drinks. "How'd you two meet?"

"Zondra," Sarah hissed.

"No, no, it's fine," Chuck assured her. "I knew this was coming, but I'm ready." Carina and Zondra exchanged a look again. "So, it all started on Thanksgiving."

}o{

Thanksgiving

Sarah was sitting outside in the courtyard, the weather warm for Thanksgiving, but it was California. She looked up at the open window that the smells were waifing from. She was nearly certain that was Chuck's apartment, the guy she had been thinking she should introduce herself to. Zondra and Carina had been on her about getting back into the dating world.

She was thinking about how to ask him out, when the subject of her thoughts came jogging back towards the apartments. Her eyes went wide and her head jerked toward the window that she thought was his. She swore she had heard an explosion.

She turned back to look at Chuck, who looked mortified, and had taken off at a sprint. Time seemed to slow as she saw what was going to happen. He was trying to cut the corner of the sidewalk, but what he didn't see was the sprinkler head that was sticking up out of the ground.

She followed the path he would take and began to wince. There were numerous bushes between the side walk and the building, but where he was headed was his worse nightmare. A cactus. If that wasn't bad enough, mulch was laid down. But, no, not the soft mulch. The hard wood chip like. Chuck Bartowski was about to take flight and end up in a world of pain.

She tried to open her mouth to warn him, but she had made the calculations in her head, in a split second. She had to give it up for her former training. She hoped she was wrong. She knew he wasn't.

The words, "Oh, SHIT!" seemed to come out in slow motion, as she watched him flip, his right leg and buttock, hitting the cactus, his eyes going wide from pain. Mulch launched into the air where he fell. She could tell his bare leg was going to be an absolute mess.

"Chuck!" she yelled, running to him.

"Ughhhh," he groaned, as if words were escaping him.

"Can you move?"

"Maybe, but I'm not sure I want to," he admitted.

"Okay, let me help you," she said, gingerly getting him to his feet. "Don't wipe off the back of your leg! Needles."

"Oh, good call," Chuck said. "And that's what that pain is. Oh, God!"

"Let me help you," she said, wrapping his arm over her shoulders, taking the weight off of his right leg. "Sarah Walker, by the way, I don't think we have ever been formally introduced."

"Chuck Bartowski," Chuck replied. "Thank you."

"Hey, it's no problem."

"I really need to get up to my apartment," Chuck told her. "I think my turkey exploded."

"Is that a euphemism for something?" Sarah asked, as she got him inside the building.

"I wish," Chuck admitted. "I just moved out of my sister's and boyfriend's apartment a few months ago, and I don't think she believes I can take care of myself. I was the one that was supposed to make Thanksgiving dinner."

"Hence your turkey exploded," Sarah said, nodding as the two gingerly made their way up the stairs.

"I followed the directions to the letter," Chuck told her. "I found this recipe in an old box of our family's things."

They made it to the apartment and Chuck fished the key out of his pocket. He opened the door, and just stared at what he saw. Smoke was billowing out of the oven. "No," he said in a sad voice. "No."

"Okay, let's get you to the couch, and have you lay down on your stomach, to not make the needles go deeper in you," Sarah said, leading him there. He was on autopilot.

"It's fine, they can't hurt me worse than I hurt right now," Chuck said. Sarah helped him lay down on his stomach, and went into the kitchen. She turned off the oven, opened the oven door, and quickly shut it. She didn't do it fast enough because the smoke alarm began to blare. She grabbed a piece of paper from the counter and began to fan under the alarm.

"How bad?" Chuck asked.

"I mean, if you like your turkey, pre-shredded, all over the oven, it's perfect," Sarah told him. "Oh, and burnt."

"Cajun style," Chuck muttered. Sarah gave him a strange look. "Every time I burnt something back at the old apartment, Devon would joke we were having something Cajun style." Chuck began to chuckle.

"What's so funny?"

"I can design computer programs, I can do so many things, but apparently cooking is not one of those things," Chuck admitted.

"And that's fine," Sarah told him, coming over to the couch, the fire alarm having stopped. She was glancing at the paper. "Uh, is this the recipe?"

"Maybe," Chuck admitted.

"And you followed it word for word?" Sarah asked. Chuck nodded. "Four cups of crushed dry bread, half a cup of sage, quarter cup of onions, half cup of celery, half cup of uncooked popcorn, one teaspoon of salt, and five cups of broth?" Chuck nodded. "Mix well, stuff turkey, and cook five hours at three hundred degrees?"

"I did exactly that," Chuck told her.

Sarah glanced at Chuck and back at the recipe. She then unfolded the paper, revealing one more line. Chuck's mouth dropped. "Or until the popcorn blows the ass off the turkey."

Chuck began to chuckle, than snort, and then laugh hysterically. "That is the greatest gag ever!" he said.

She could help but laugh at his infectious laugh. His phone rang. He picked it up, looked at it, shook his head, and answered. "Hey, sis." He listened for a minute. "You know, it's okay, there was a turkey malfunction. Tomorrow? Well, see," and he stopped talking, as Sarah had laid her hand on his arm.

"Tomorrow," she mouthed. She had just watched a man take a loss. It was obvious how much he wanted to do something to prove to his sister, but also to himself, that he could make it without her. "But not turkey," she mouthed, glancing at the oven.

"Sis, how do you feel about Mexican for tomorrow?" He listened a second and smiled. "Great! I hope everything goes okay. Love you." With that, he hung up. "They're emergency room doctors, and they both got called in, which makes things even worse."

"Why's that?" Sarah asked.

"The only place open is the emergency room and now if I go in to get these needles out…" he let out a frustrated breath.

"Don't forget the splinters from the mulch," Sarah added. Chuck put his face into the couch and sighed. "I'll get them out."

"Sarah, they are way up my leg, and-"

"Chuck, I just saw your oven. Trust me, whatever you think I'm gonna see, it can't be worse than the inside of that oven." Chuck burst out laughing. "But I do have a question."

"What's that?"

"How are you going to clean up that oven in time to make dinner for tomorrow?"

"Oh, I'm not making it, we're getting take out," Chuck told her.

"We're?" she asked.

"I-uh…would you like to have dinner with me, my sister, and her boyfriend tomorrow?" Chuck offered.

"You promise you won't cook?" Sarah asked. Chuck burst out laughing again.

}o{

Now

"Blondie, you got into his pants before your first date," Carina teased. Zondra laughed, and the two went into the kitchen to check on dinner.

"And what they don't know is you got into mine the next night after dinner," Sarah said. Chuck held his drink out, and she clinked hers with his.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed it.